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What is mobile marketing and why should you care?  Well, we're pretty sure that you have at least heard of mobile marketing, but perhaps you don't really understand the concept or how you can use it to market your brand and build on the reputation you have in your industry.  Or how a properly executed mobile marketing campaign can take your income to the next level and beyond.  No worries!  Today we are going to go over the basics of mobile marketing and exactly what you need to do to implement a super successful mobile marketing campaign.  Here is what we are going to cover in this segment:

• Knowing your mobile marketing campaign objectives
  
  
• Finding your target market
  
  
• Understanding the flow and the cross-channel components of your campaign
  
  
• Crafting your message and why the right content matters
  
  
• Testing, testing, testing
  
  
• Follow up and the customer service experience
  
  

Knowing Your Mobile Marketing Campaign Objectives

Every good campaign begins with a well thought out plan.  A marketing blueprint of exactly what you want to achieve and the steps you will take to get there.  This is a critical step and one that shouldn't be skipped, if you want your mobile marketing campaign to be successful.  Meet with your team and determine exactly what it is you want this campaign to achieve.  Then develop an outline of the steps needed to get you from start to finish.  Don't worry, your final outline will be fine tuned along the way as you add and subtract the ideas and processes you feel are crucial or expendable.  You should start by first determining what your immediate needs are, such as increasing foot traffic, sales or retaining your current customers.  Then build your blueprint around that.  If your goal is to achieve all of the above simultaneously, then you will need to break down your marketing plan into separate sections, each of which focus on the steps you will need to achieve those goals.  Below we will discuss how you should go about doing just that.

Finding Your Target Market

You should spend a significant amount of time on this step of your marketing campaign, because if you don't know who your target market is how are you possibly going to market to them?  That's right, you can't!  Determine exactly who it is you want to market to.  You will need to know the specific demographics of your target market.  Their age range, gender, income level, likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc.  The more you know about your target market the easier it will be to develop concepts and ideas your target audience will respond to.  You can use websites such as:  Quantcast.com, SBA.gov (Small Business Administration), bls.gov (Bureau of Labor Statistics) or any other similar statistical data website that best meets your needs.  You will use one or all of these sites to gather the necessary data that will help you determine who makes up your target market.  After you have compiled that data, you need to build a concept around those particular details and create a campaign that encompasses everything about that specific demographic.  For example, if you are marketing to Millennials, you aren't going to want to build a campaign around typewriters or wheelchairs, or if you are marketing to seniors, you aren't going to want to build a campaign around skateboards and dirt bikes, etc.  Your campaign has to appeal to your target market or you're just wasting your precious advertising dollars.

Understanding The Flow And The Cross-Channel Components Of Your Campaign

Once you have completed the final draft of your marketing blueprint, it's important to map out the intended flow of your campaign so you can anticipate the behavior and how your audience will funnel into your business.  Will they get to your business via a mobile device, desktop, in-store or through print ads?  You will need to know this so you can fix any possible flaws in your intended flow.  For example, are there any points in your flow where your customer could potentially go in the wrong direction, perhaps with a misplaced link or message that causes them to click out of your funnel, etc?

You and your team need to follow your marketing funnel several times to eliminate any potential unintended behaviors that lead your visitors in the wrong direction.  Ask yourself, where will your visitors begin?  Where do you want them to end?  Do your additional offers keep your visitors on track or lead them astray?  Exactly what is it you want your visitors to do and did you include that in your call to action?  Are there any other channels you should incorporate into your flow to make it easier for your users and give your campaign additional opportunities for being more successful?  Are the call to actions you used resulting in your desired visitor behavior?  You need to know the answers to each of these questions and anything else that might arise during your testing and this will help ensure your sales funnel is as flawless as possible.   By doing this you will eliminate any possible holes in your sales funnel and this will keep your visitors following your intended sales path straight to a completed purchase.

Crafting Your Message And Why The Right Content Matters

Crafting your message ties in with knowing your target market demographics and everything else you've uncovered about that market.  Delivering content your visitors want to receive is extremely important.  If you don't give them something they want, in the format they prefer, they won't bother to look at it, if they even bother to open it at all.  You must give your audience exciting, enticing content they eagerly devour then share with all their friends.  This means if your market research uncovered that your audience prefers video content, or hot topic content, etc. then that's what you should be giving them.  If you just send them the plain old run-of-the-mill black and white boring content, they probably won't bother to read it, let alone share it.  And not only that, when you send them your next SMS message, they will immediately delete it.  Why shouldn't they?  You sent them something they didn't want the first time, they aren't going to waste anymore of their valuable time reading your messages going forward.  That means, you not only wasted your ad spend, but you very well might have lost a loyal follower and quite possibly a customer for life.  Research matters!  You must give your audience what they want in the format they expect!  This step will not only build your loyal customer base, but it will also help you retain the customers you already have by providing them with content they look forward to receiving.

Testing, Testing, Testing

This goes without saying; however, we are going to mention it again.  You should always split test your campaigns.  Continually testing what's working and what's not is the only way you can make the changes necessary to grab as much ROI as possible.  Testing isn't something you do once, then never think about again.  Split testing your campaigns is all part of the process.  Buying and marketing trends can change in an instant and if you're not continually testing your marketing strategies to see what's working and what's not, you will be leaving money, and more, on the table - guaranteed!  This step will help you weed out the campaigns that are costing you money, as well as allow you to see which ads work and which ones don't.  You can continue to split test and tweak your ads, which over time, will help you to grow your year over year revenue.

Follow Up And The Customer Service Experience

The last part of any good mobile marketing campaign is tracking and following up on your efforts.  Once you have obtained a customer, you need to continue to market to them, which includes providing valuable content, as well as the periodic special offer, sale or discount information.  What good is going to all that work to get new customers, if you aren't going to follow up with them and doing whatever it takes to retain them as a customer?   You must implement a system to follow up with your customers or you risk losing them forever to someone who does.

And last but not least, before we end our segment about "what is mobile marketing," we need to briefly talk about customer service.  Once you have gotten all those new customers, you need to make sure their customer service experience is top-notch and that they are receiving all the help and respect they deserve.  If you don't, you will lose them and they will be picked up by your competitor and you might not ever be able to get them back.  We are quite sure you didn't do all this work just to lose your new customers to a competitor.  So don't let that happen to you.  You must make sure your customer service team has been properly trained to handle your customers with care!   Your customer service team is the face and the voice of your company; therefore, you must train them to handle and deliver exceptional customer service.  Doing this will build your brand and your reputation in the industry, as well as help you retain those hard earned customers for life.

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